


Little Deuce Coupe

by brittlelimbs



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Badass Rey, Crushes, F/M, Flirting, M/M, Pining, jock poe, nerd finn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-24
Updated: 2016-03-24
Packaged: 2018-05-28 21:26:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6345988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brittlelimbs/pseuds/brittlelimbs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"So. Finn. Would you, uh--" Poe rubs the back of his neck, looking away, cheeks stained so deeply pink that Finn thinks he might burst aflame at any second. </p><p>Rey grabs his hand. "What he means to say," she breathes, "is, would you...go steady with us?" </p><p>Finn blinks.<br/>He is <em>fucked.</em></p><p>AKA A good, old-fashioned Jedistormpilot high school AU, in which nerdy, new kid Finn is courted by Coruscant High's biggest power couple.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Little Deuce Coupe

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is based (somewhat loosely) on [this](http://togrutan.tumblr.com/post/135692968224/astrielli-you-had-me-at-nerdy-precious-finn) amazing fanart!

Poe Dameron has a really, really nice car.

It’s a ’69 Dodge Charger, black as all hell, souped-up with chrome bumpers and a hemi under the hood—the growl of that thing is passing-period legend, loud enough to hear two blocks away, loud enough that Finn knows _exactly_ when Poe coasts into school each morning, even from across the student lot. One hand slung right over top of the wheel, the other crooked out the open window, slapping the beast’s flank in time with the Top-50 he’s got blaring on the radio. Confident and gorgeous, just exactly like that.

The plates read BLK-ONE (his jersey number), and it’s a brute of an old muscle car, almost as glorious as the kid himself, but not quite; he’s a hockey star in the winter, track icon in the spring, and all-around unanimous Great Guy of Coruscant High. All easy smiles, golden skin, the type of simmering libido that drips from broad shoulders and the carnal red of his varsity jacket like he not even _trying_ to be that sexy, he just _is_. Effortless god of West Gym and 8 th period detention.

Finn heard that he made Kelly Derrigner pass out cold in A-Block, once, just by asking to borrow her pencil.

He’s kinda mythic.

 _Right_. So, at this precise moment, on a completely unassuming Thursday afternoon, Finn’s sitting _in the backseat of Poe Dameron’s car_ , and this might be the most terrified he’s ever been.

He wipes his palms on his jeans, trying not to get shameful, sweaty handprints all over the leather of the bench seat, though he’s only partially successful; Rey’s in the seat in front of him, riding shotgun, and everything is somehow even _worse_.

Rey is Poe’s girlfriend and maybe, _maybe_ , one of Finn’s secret little crushes. She’s right there, boots on the dash like it’s all no big deal, even though her sheer presence is putting Finn inches away from having heart palpations.

She’s in Finn’s physic’s class, whip-smart, and so breathtakingly attractive to Finn’s little nerd heart that it’s scary as fucking shit.

This had all started because of her, of course. They’d spent the whole semester in class together, but all at once, three weeks ago, this girl had just _decided_ that Finn’s new assigned seat was the one next to hers, for no real discernable reason.

Normally, Finn sits at the back; he’s the new kid, and new kids, he’s learned, especially ones that love math and anime and collecting serialized space-hero graphic novels, need to keep their heads down. He knows the drill, has been transplanted from high school to high school enough to thoroughly memorize the social pecking order. Bible Belt, Midwest, hippy-dippy West Coast—doesn’t make a difference. Same kids, same cruelty.

So accordingly, every week, day in and day out, he sat in the back row, second from the left, pretending that he didn’t care about physics (because nobody who was anybody actually cared about _physics_ , god!), and ignoring Rey, that shining beacon of beauty and perfection. Sometimes, on bad days, it was hard to actually focus on the board—the fine hairs at the nape of her neck somehow possessed more gravitational pull than the strongest tractor beam, the heaviest neutron star. Corner seat, front row, clouding out his view of chalked equations and formulas and all those asinine quantitative reasonings that Finn so loves. He found a different way of making sense of the universe, there, zeroed in on her slim and graceful neck, sloping down into narrow shoulders, the time-creased denim of her jacket collar. Rey’s Law of Attraction, made to govern him and him alone.

But on good days, most days, Finn took meticulous notes while pretending that he didn’t. Forever the straight-edge, out of place against the mellow, hazy back-row crowd. Forever “what’s-his-name, the new kid,” or simply nothing at all. Nobody.

And then, one day, it just—changed. He had shuffled into class, angling to shlump into his usual seat, when something miraculous had happened: he’d heard Rey call his name. The sound of it was high, sharp, and it made Finn’s heart stop. _What_. He did a double take. It took a second for him to figure out that yes _,_ she’d called him, and secondly, that she was gesturing the empty seat next to her.

Fate. Fate?

And then Finn balked; he knew that seat was Wedge Antilles’ seat. Finn did not want to sit in Wedge Antilles’ seat, nor he did want to sit in anyone else’s seat at all, save for the little private space he’d carved for himself in the back of the class, where most of the kids were too high tell, or care, that he actually gave a damn about school.

Rey smiled.

Finn sat.

( _Simple physics_ , he told himself that night. _Action and reaction.)_

 

And, thusly, this weird thing, this closeness he doesn’t have a name for, had started. Three weeks ago, to the day. It had begun with the seat, innocently enough, then progressed to something more, gaining momentum, growing into greetings in the hallway, Facebook messages asking about homework assignments. Little touches on his wrists, correcting the curve of a theoretical trajectory as they did homework together, the heat of her hand lingering on worksheets and problem sets. Her handwriting is bold, hard, like she has to press the numbers into the paper to keep them there, and Finn starts going home with her graphite smeared all over his hands.

Finn knows that she has a boyfriend, but, oh. It’s so nice.

He’d looked at her over their library desk last Wednesday ( _their_ desk, in a way that makes Finn’s heart beat faster), and thought: he could be content with this. Just proximity, close enough see her brow crease in total concentration, to breathe her scent.

Rey smells clean, good, of creosote and sage, and Finn would be okay with this.

And then today had happened.

After class, she’d asked Finn if he wanted to study with her for the upcoming test. As in, study with her in her actual home. Golden eyes, slim fingers around his wrist, no hint of hesitation or insecurity. Asked him to come over, just like that. Finn was so thoroughly stunned that he doesn’t remember saying yes, but he must’ve at some point-- _action and reaction._

Suddenly Poe fucking Dameron became a part of the deal somewhere in between(right, shit, they’re _dating_ ), and now he’s here, riding in the car of the most attractive guy in school and the girl he thinks he loves. Like, _you know_ , it’s no big deal.

“So, Finn,” Poe says, and Finn stiffens, watching as he slings an arm across the back of Rey’s bucket seat. This is the first thing Poe’s ever really said to him before, apart from the _hey there_ shot Finn’s way when he got in the car.

“How’s everything going, man? How’s school?”

His eyes flick to Finn’s in the review mirror. They’re heavy lidded, so dark brown and lush and perfect that Finn thinks, for a hot second, he’s going to fucking piss his pants, right there on the vintage leather seats.

“I—“ _oh shit, words, words!_ And before he can stop it, and question tumbles out, torn from the back of his mind.

“Don’t—you have practice to go to?”

 _Fuck_. Finn feels a mortified sweat break out in his armpits underneath his jacket, darkening in the denim creases at the backs of his knees. Now it’s been proven, scientifically, right in front Coruscant High’s biggest power couple:

He’s a fucking idiot.

 

Finn is fucking _adorable._

Poe bites the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling. Adorable, and brilliant, and gorgeous, and so many other amazing things that Poe can’t wait to discover about this guy.

He catches Rey out of the corner of his eye, and she looks so smug that Poe almost laughs with it; _she was right_. He swallows down his smile instead, shoots Finn something in the rearview mirror that looks a little more kind and a little less, uh, _creepy_.  

Like he and Rey haven’t been waiting for this moment for pretty much forever.

“Well, I do, but not ‘till later,” he says, trying, impossibly, to keep both eyes on the road and Finn at the same time. “We go seven to nine on Thursdays.”

“Oh,” Finn says quietly, and he looks like he’s trying to fold himself into his own jacket, sink beneath its jersey collar. He’s fucking terrified. Poe eases them up to the red light ahead, palms the stick, then waits till he’s satisfied with the _ca-thunk-thunk_ of third gear before whirling around to face his backseat passenger.

“Hey, buddy,” he says, searching those dark eyes, trying to coax Finn out of this funk. They hadn’t expected him to be quite so scared as this, so skittish and wide-eyed. “I’m just trying to make conversation. Rey, here,” he nods to her, “well, she thinks you’re a pretty standup guy.” The _I do, too_ , sits on his lips, unsaid.

He’d seen the class grade scores, the State Mathalete competition results—despite what a lot of people think, Poe Dameron actually gives a shit about brains, and learning, and a lot of other that people don’t give hockey guys credit for. And damn, but Finn is _smart_ , his name cropping up at the top of the ranking pretty much any hard science class you could throw his way; that’s when Poe first became aware of Finn, when he was just a little neatly printed name occurring over and over in all these different lists, like a crucial clue in some grander mystery. _Who the hell is this guy?_ Poe had asked Rey, pointing to the fourth name down on the honor roll. And Rey knew him. It had only taken that, that tiny little reference, and they were hooked _._

Poe watches Finn. He bets there’s a writing enthusiast all tangled up in there, too. Christ, maybe he even writes _poetry_. Poe loves that shit.

Maybe that’s why he loves Rey so damn much; she’s the first person, the only person, who ever looked at him with steady eyes and said _write me something_.

He looks to her now.

“The light’s turned green,” she says.

And so it has. He settles back in his seat, gets them moving again, only minutes away from Rey’s place. Silence unfurls as Poe guides them smoothly through a few more turns and stops, the growl of the engine and clunk of the stick shift filling the space. It’s kinda peaceful, Poe thinks. In its own, weird way.

Rey’s apartment is a small, but functional little thing, tucked between the local Laundromat and Thai place. Her foster dad, Luke, isn’t home when they arrive, probably still off at the local charter school where he teaches Junior English. Poe really likes the guy, though he walks like he carries the weight of the world on his shoulders. He treats Rey the best he can, even with his modest teacher’s salary. The apartment is cozy on the inside, well-lived in, and smells entirely of Rey. Poe likes that, too.

Finn looks ready shit a brick from sheer nervousness when they walk in, like he’s half expecting to be assaulted as soon as he takes off his tennis shoes, relaxes the slightest inch. Poe smiles gently, and, after a moment’s thought, places one hand on Finn’s shoulder, kneads it a little. Even through the initial flinch.

“Well, buddy, welcome to Casa Del Rey! Palatial, aint it?”

Finn looks mildly impressed that Poe knew that the word _palatial_ existed, and Poe wants to laugh again.

 

Poe putters around the kitchen, making some tea from the little sachets of Earl Grey he discovers under the counter, while they start their problem set, notebooks spread across the tiny Formica kitchen table in a papery fan. He sets up some mugs, comforted by the clink of chipped ceramic, then watches Finn and Rey quietly from where he’s propped up against the countertop, waiting for the water to boil. Rey murmurs some question to Finn, pointing to some hastily scribbled answer, and their heads lean together as they gently work at the stubborn problem. It’s a natural movement, like two trees swaying together, or the gravitational pull between planetoids.

Poe knows, rationally, that he should be jealous. That’s Rey, his crazy, wild, wonderful girl, looking for all the world like she’s gravitating towards someone else like a planet would to a star. It should be an awful sight, the stuff of heartsickness and anger, but somehow, it’s—not. No. Not at all.

A strand of hair parts gently from around Rey’s jaw as she looks down, filling in the rest of the problem. Finn hasn’t looked away from her face, still completely engrossed in her ( _how couldn’t he be_ , Poe thinks), and Poe sees it: there, an unconscious twitch of his hand, like he was about to sweep the downy curl away, and had just barely stopped himself.

Suddenly Poe finds himself staring Finn straight in the eye; intrinsically mortified, most likely, that Poe might’ve somehow seen.

Well then. Cocking his hip against the counter, Poe gives Finn his absolute best heart-stopping smirk. This shit melts panties, and Poe know it. He’s rewarded handsomely: before his very eyes, Finn’s face darkens with flush, and that strong jaw relaxes, drops, just the tiniest little bit.

Poe pushes himself off the counter hips first, maintaining eye contact; this part is key, see. But it isn’t an issue; Poe knows that face. Finn couldn’t look away, even if he tried. Those dark eyes are starting to glaze over and _shit_ , but he’s all Poe’s. He spins on his heel, attending to the kettle, which is just starting to whistle with the water boiling inside it.

“Finn… _Finn_!” Rey’s voice sounds sharp, but not unkind.

“Oh! My bad—“

Poe bites down hard on his lower lip as he fiddles with the tea bags, trying to tamp down his grin as he listens to the two of them squabble. Finn and Rey can’t see his face, but Poe is so happy that it’s nearly embarrassing.

He corrects himself: Finn is all _theirs_.

**Author's Note:**

> come join me at floatin-on-bespin.tumblr.com to talk about these cuties :) 
> 
> comments always welcome!


End file.
